Noticias

viernes, 5 de agosto de 2016

Washington -- Hillary Clinton on Friday doubled down on recent misleading statements about her use of a private email server at the State Department, even as she acknowledged that she "may have short-circuited" her answers about it.

At a gathering of black and Hispanic journalists in Washington, D.C., Clinton -- who has come under fire for not often taking media questions -- was asked about her recent assertion that FBI Director James Comey had said she was "truthful" to the public in discussing the issue, a claim that a number of media outlets, including CNN, have debunked.

"I was pointing out in both of those instances, that Director Comey had said that my answers in my FBI interview were truthful. That really is the bottom line here," she said. "What I told the FBI, which he said was truthful, is consistent with what I have said publicly. I may have short-circuited and for that I will try to clarify."

Clinton went on to repeat that she "never sent or received" classified information on her private email server -- a statement that is inconsistent with Comey's testimony on Capitol Hill.

"And I would go back to where I started, I regret using one account, I have taken responsibility for that," Clinton said.

The email controversy has continued to dog Clinton's presidential campaign, particularly as she suffers from the widespread perception among voters that she isn't honest or trustworthy.

Clinton on Friday also called on journalists hold Donald Trump accountable, saying reporters "have a special responsibility to our democracy at a time like this." She warned about her opponent: "He's harkening back to the most shameful chapters of our history and appealing to the ugliest impulses of our society ... He retweets white nationalists."

Clinton also addressed the problematic ways in which Trump has treated reporters, saying it is a "badge of honor" when journalists are kicked out of his press conferences or banned from attending his rallies.

"America is better than Donald Trump," she said. "We need to stand up and say that Donald Trump doesn't represent who we are and what we believe."

At the core of Clinton's brief opening remarks at Friday's conference was the economic progress made under President Barack Obama's two terms in the White House. Clinton said Friday that the country was "out of the ditch."

"I believe President Obama does not get the credit that he deserves for leading us out of the Great Recession," Clinton said. "We are out of the ditch that we were in and now we've got to do even more. We've got to build on the progress that we've made.

The Democratic nominee for president noted minorities were especially hurt by the financial crisis.

"It's been said that when the economy catches a cold, communities of color get pneumonia," she said. "The great recession hit our whole country hard but the toll was especially difficult for black and Latino families."

Clinton's comments came hours after the U.S. government announced that the economy added 255,000 jobs in July -- surpassing economists' expectations -- while the unemployment rate stayed at 4.9%.

Clinton and her running mate, Tim Kaine, have been traveling the country to discuss their jobs agenda, including a three-day bus tour across the Rust Belt following the Democratic National Convention.

To counter the stronger-than-expected jobs report, Republican nominee Donald Trump released a statement Friday morning saying the country is "in the middle of the single worst 'recovery' since the Great Depression"

"The economy the media and the Clinton Machine is describing is an economy that doesn't exist for most Americans," Trump said. "It's an economy enjoyed by her donors and special interests, and one suffered through every day by millions of Americans."

Looming over Clinton's appearance in front of a ballroom full of journalists in Washington, D.C., was her relative lack of interactions with reporters.

Clinton has emerged one of the least accessible candidates to run for president this year, rarely taking question from her traveling press corps.

Clinton last held a formal press conference on December 4, 2015, in Fort Dodge, Iowa. Since then she had held 11 "gaggles" -- or informal press conferences -- taking questions from a few members of her traveling press corps. The last such huddle was on July 31 in Ashland, Ohio.

Rather than have frequent contact with reporters, Clinton's campaign has opted for sit-down interviews -- a setting that her aides believe she is more comfortable in.

Brian Fallon, her national press secretary, has routinely said that Clinton "oftentimes" will end the day with a media availability where she will "literally stand there for 15, 20 minutes and answer questions from her traveling press corps, including the embeds from the various networks."

But Clinton has not once taken questions for 15 to 20 minutes in 2016. The growing frustration among reporters and the criticism about the lack of accessibility has irked some Clinton's campaign officials.

"We'll have a press conference when we want to have a press conference," Joel Benenson, Clinton's chief strategist, said last month.

As Clinton took questions from reporters on Friday, Washington Post's Ed O'Keefe quipped: "We encourage you to do this more often."

miércoles, 27 de julio de 2016

"Russia, if you're listening I hope you're able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing. I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press," Trump said during a news conference in Florida.

Shortly after his event ended, Trump repeated his call on Twitter.

"If Russia or any other country or person has Hillary Clinton's 33,000 illegally deleted emails, perhaps they should share them with the FBI!" Trump tweeted.

"This has to be the first time that a major presidential candidate has actively encouraged a foreign power to conduct espionage against his political opponent," said Hillary for America senior policy adviser Jake Sullivan. "That's not hyperbole, those are just the facts. This has gone from being a matter of curiosity, and a matter of politics, to being a national security issue."

Trump's comments represented a stunning twist in a controversy about Russia's alleged intervention in the presidential election after the release of Democratic Party emails, which appeared to show that party leaders were tilting the playing field against Clinton's Democratic primary opponent Bernie Sanders. US officials have said the emails were hacked from DNC servers in an operation originating in Russia that appeared to be linked to Moscow's intelligence agency.

Trump also suggested during his news conference that Russian President Vladimir Putin's lack of respect for the US prompted him to once call President Barack Obama "the N word." There are no published reports to back up Trump's claim about Putin's use of the racially derogatory term.

"I was shocked. Number one, he doesn't like him. Number two, he doesn't respect him," Trump said.
He called Russia's potential involvement in the hack another sign of Russia's "disrespect for our country."

Trump said U.S.-Russia relations would be better under his presidency than if Clinton ascended to the Oval Office, saying he would treat Putin "firmly," but would seek to bolster ties between the U.S. and Russia.

Philadelphia (CNN)--Democrats on Tuesday made Hillary Clinton the first woman to head a major party ticket -- and during an emotional night, her family and supporters asked voters to give her a second look.

At the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, just three miles from Independence Hall where the nation was born, a sense of history is palpable -- as is Clinton's willingness to finally enjoy it.

"What an incredible honor that you have given me, and I can't believe we just put the biggest crack in that glass ceiling yet," Clinton said via satellite after a video montage showed the faces of all 44 male presidents before shattering like glass to reveal Clinton waiting to address the convention from New York.

"This is really your victory. This is really your night," Clinton told the cheering crowd. "And if there are any little girls out there who stayed up late to watch, let me just say I may become the first woman President. But one of you is next."

The Clinton campaign hoped the day would build momentum and goodwill to repair the deep divides that still linger after her bitter primary duel with Bernie Sanders. The goal is to reshape national perceptions of a candidate with negative approval ratings and who was lambasted last week at the Republican National Convention as a criminal and liar.

Former President Bill Clinton weaved a parable of Clinton's work for children, the sick and the disabled into the story of their relationship. More than two decades after Hillary Clinton became a fixture in national politics, Bill Clinton's folksy, sometimes meandering testimony was aimed at revealing a softer side of the Democratic nominee to a nationwide television audience.

PARIS — One of the two young men who killed an 85-year-old priest in a town in Normandy on Tuesday had been detained for nearly 10 months after twice trying to travel to Syria, but he was released in March over the objection of prosecutors, according to French officials.

The young man, Adel Kermiche, 19, was born in Mont-St.-Aignan, a town about five miles away from St.-Étienne-du-Rouvray, where he killed the priest, the Rev. Jacques Hamel, at the end of morning Mass. Mr. Kermiche and the other attacker, who has not been identified, were shot dead by the police. Five other people — three nuns and two parishioners — were held hostage at the church; one of the nuns escaped, but one of the parishioners, an 86-year-old man, was critically injured. The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack.

The news that Mr. Kermiche was known to the authorities was announced Tuesday evening by François Molins, the Paris prosecutor, who oversees terrorism investigations. It immediately raised new concerns about the government’s ability to prevent radicalized young people from traveling to Syria and committing acts of terrorism.

On Wednesday, a former president, Nicolas Sarkozy, who is expected to be a candidate in the 2017 presidential elections and has proposed constitutional changes to crack down on terrorism, seized on the news to criticize President François Hollande’s government for not doing more to protect the country — an accusation that top officials, including Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve, called baseless and politically motivated.

The details of Mr. Kermiche’s life suggest a man who desperately wanted to get away from France. On March 23, 2015, a relative reported that he had disappeared. The same day, German authorities detained him as he tried to use identification papers belonging to his brother to travel to Syria. The following day, he was returned to France and placed under detention. On March 28, 2015, he was charged with attempting a criminal act and placed under judicial supervision. He was ordered not to leave the Seine-Maritime department, where he is from, and was required to report once a week to his local police station.

Mr. Kermiche was not deterred, however, from his goal of becoming a jihadist. Just over a month later, he left home. An international arrest warrant was issued for him, and on May 13, 2015, he was arrested after flying to Turkey from Geneva — this time using his cousin’s national identity card. The Turkish authorities sent him back to Switzerland, and on May 22, 2015, the Swiss authorities sent him back to France.

There he faced new charges for violating judicial orders by trying to go to Syria. He was detained until March 18 of this year, when a counterterrorism judge allowed him to go home, but under house arrest, with electronic monitoring. He was permitted to leave his house from 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., Monday through Friday, and from 2 to 6 p.m. on weekends and holidays. The authorities confiscated his national identity card and passport.

The Paris prosecutor’s office appealed the decision to let Mr. Kermiche go home, but on March 25, an appellate court upheld the judge’s decision to release him under house arrest.

In addition, a 16-year-old native of Algeria was arrested in St.-Étienne-du-Rouvray at 11:40 a.m. on Wednesday, Mr. Molins said. The teenager is the younger brother of another man who is wanted by the authorities for having used Mr. Kermiche’s identity card on March 20, 2015, to leave France, headed for Iraq or Syria.

Mr. Kermiche’s persistence — despite repeatedly being stopped in his efforts to go to Syria and having spent almost a year in preventive detention before being released, and then only with elaborate conditions put on him — suggests that he was at the very least heeding the Islamic State’s call, which Mr. Molins described as: “Strike at any moment and any place, in all circumstances.”

Mr. Molins added, using an Arabic term for the Islamic State: “That is the criminal and fanatic propaganda of the criminal organization of Daesh, which takes over the minds of individuals of varying profiles and backgrounds in a terrifying way.”